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Evaluation of Machine Learning Approaches for Precision Farming in Smart Agriculture System: A Comprehensive Review
No full textIn the era of digital data proliferation, agriculture stands on the cusp of a transformative
revolution driven by Machine Learning (ML). This study delves into the intricate interplay between
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and conventional agriculture, emphasizing the role
of ML in reshaping farming practices. With the ongoing data tsunami impacting data-driven businesses,
the fusion of smart farming and precision agriculture emerges as a beacon of innovation. ML algorithms,
analyzing historical and real-time environmental data, soil conditioning, predicts suitable crop for maximum
yields, detect diseases, and optimize irrigation in smart farming, facilitating informed decision-making.
Precision agriculture benefits from autonomous vehicles and drones, driven by ML, ensuring precision
in planting, harvesting, and crop monitoring. Resource efficiency increases as ML optimizes energy
consumption, manages fertilizer application, and promotes climate-resilient practices. This comprehensive
assessment underscores ML’s pivotal role in maximizing productivity, minimizing environmental impact,
and navigating the complexities of modern agriculture
User-Generated Content Shapes Judicial Reasoning: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial on Wikipedia
No full textLegal professionals have access to many different sources of knowledge, including user-generated Wikipedia articles that summarize previous judicial decisions (i.e., precedents). Although these Wikipedia articles are easily accessible, they have unknown provenance and reliability, and therefore using them in professional settings is problematic. Nevertheless, Wikipedia articles influence legal judgments, as we show using a first-of-its-kind randomized control trial on judicial decision making. We find that the presence of a Wikipedia article about Irish Supreme Court decisions makes it meaningfully more likely that the corresponding case will be cited as a precedent by judges in subsequent decisions. The language used in the Wikipedia article also influences the language used in judgments. These effects are only present for citations by the High Court and not for the higher levels of the judiciary (Court of Appeal and Supreme Court). The High Court faces larger caseloads, so this may indicate that settings with greater time pressures encourage greater reliance on Wikipedia. Our results add to the growing recognition that Wikipedia and other frequently accessed sources of user-generated content have profound effects on important social outcomes and that these effects extend farther than previously seen—into high-stakes settings where norms are supposed to restrict their use.
History: Rajiv Kohli, Senior Editor; Gordon Burtch, Associate Editor.
Funding: The authors thank the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Maynooth University for research funding.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2023.0034
Becoming Édouard Louis and the Transmedial Social Novel
No full textThis article considers Édouard Louis’s extensive literary œuvre from En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule (2014) to his latest novel, Monique s’évade (2024), in conjunction with his interactions in the public sphere. It first explores how the space of the novel becomes as much a space of exploration of the various processes of domination that shaped his and his family’s lives as it is a space of self-reinvention. In particular, it is Louis’s transformation practice that guides this article. Indeed, this article looks at the ways in which Louis engages in processes of branding, be it the act of making a product or the act of marking something or someone, in turn building one coherent cultural figure commited to social justice and making audible and visible vulnerable lived experiences. Not only an écrivain engagé, Louis has also become a theatre performer and a political activist who deploys and controls his narrative in literature and beyond
A Qualitative Study of Women’s Long-Term Experience of Trauma More Than Ten Years After Exiting Domestic Abuse
No full textCoercive control is a global phenomenon that has a serious impact on victims’ mental,
physical, sexual, and financial wellbeing. The aim of this study was to explore
qualitatively the long-term impacts on women who had left coercive control
relationships more than ten years previously. It was carried out to extend the empirical
understanding about the ongoing role coercive control continues to have in women’s
lives years after they exited those relationships and thereby open the possibilities for
policy and procedural changes to prevent long-term harm. Initially a review of the
literature demonstrated that this specific area had hitherto received scant attention.
Initially this entailed a review coercive control through a feminist and trauma focused
lens to support the study of coercive control in both the private and the public domains
and the impact of the dominant hegemonies through a feminist analysis of patriarchy.
Ethical approval was acquired and a loosely-structured interview schedule was used
for in-depth interviews with seven women who fitted the study criteria. This was
thematically explored in three phases: the relationship; breaking free and their current
lives. The key findings illustrate that the women who experienced coercive control
continue to live with the trauma they experienced with the perpetrators and that it
continues to significantly affect the women’s lives physically, psychologically and
financially. Furthermore, it emerged that the effects of their help-seeking encounters
within the public domain, especially within the judicial and financial sectors,
reactivated and exacerbated the traumas they experienced within the private sphere.
Moreover, they indicated that in their experience public discourse pertaining to
coercive control continues to blame and shame the victim resulting in their only
sharing their experiences of the abuse they experienced with a small trusted group of
friends. It is evident that significant research has taken place leading to substantial
policies in relation to coercive control. However, this study demonstrates that it is
imperative that hegemonic patriarchal discourse that the participants encountered be
addressed for victims of coercive control, and women in general, to ensure a safe
egalitarian society
Irish Country House Collections, Display And Dispersal: A Social Study Of Irish Art Loan Exhibitions And Auctions, 1798-1916
No full textThis thesis examines Irish art loan exhibitions and auctions where
paintings were on loan and were sold from some of the premier
collections of Irish country and town houses. Framed within significant
dates relating to rebellion in Ireland 1798 and 1916, this study uses an
interdisciplinary approach, which draws on social and art history and
demonstrates how political, legislative and other social changes affected
the art collections over time. This thesis evaluates how these exhibitions
and art sales benefitted individuals and social groups, from the education
of artists to the provision of an art gallery for the nation. The findings of
this thesis indicate that from 1814 onwards, young artists did benefit
from studying these paintings at these loan exhibitions and their
subsequent output continues to be displayed in public galleries both at
national and international level. The sale of two Old Masters from one
country estate provided new housing for its tenants and exhibitions held
during the Famine raised funds to alleviate distress.
Old Masters exhibition catalogues from the early nineteenth century
have proved extremely valuable in reconstructing country house
collections, especially where no inventory exists. It also demonstrates
how the exhibitions held in Dublin and Cork established a pattern for
lending valuable paintings to later art and industry exhibitions. Held for
the promotion of industry in Ireland, artisans could improve their design
skills, with access to these exemplars. Through an analysis of exhibition
and sales catalogues, this study chronicles the trajectory of the
collections from the privacy of the country house to public exhibitions
and auctions. The Old Masters loan exhibitions have received scant
scholarly attention, and this thesis aims to recover these and others from
the shadows and bring them to the attention of a wider audience
Introduction to the special issue on spatial machine learning
No full textWhile, many of the machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods that are now commonly being used to answer questions across scientific disciplines have been around for some time, their widespread application to spatial data
and spatially-explicit research questions is much more recent. The large number of
excellent review papers and special issues in leading journals published in the last
few years—which this issue of the Journal of Geographical Systems takes its place
among—attest to the growing interest in the application and development of cutting-edge methodologies for spatial data. This editorial begins by proposing a new inclusive definition for spatial ML, then provides a brief overview of each of the six
papers in this special issue, and ends with a suggestion of several possible directions
for future research in spatial ML
Development and physical characteristics of the Irish shelf-edge Macnas Mounds, Porcupine Seabight, NE Atlantic
No full textModern cold-water corals (CWCs) occur in a wide range of water depths, with Desmophyllum pertusum being one of the most common species. Pleistocene, Holocene, and modern coral mound formation by living CWC reefs have previously been described in the Porcupine Seabight from water depths greater than 700 m in the vicinity of the transitional zone between the Eastern North Atlantic Water and Mediterranean Outflow Water. Here we document occurrence of fossil corals retrieved from two cores at 370 m depth in the Macnas Mounds, a relatively shallow occurrence for mounds on the Irish shelf-edge. Both cores feature D. pertusum restricted to the upper two metres, immediately overlying an erosive surface and a coeval major down-core change in grain size from sand to mud. Radiocarbon dating of coral specimens indicates the CWC mounds initiated 7.82 Cal ky BP. Our study unequivocally documents the existence of Holocene shelf-edge coral mounds in the eastern Porcupine Seabight and highlights the possibility of other occurrences of CWCs in similar settings elsewhere in the northeast Atlantic. Given that no living CWCs were encountered in the study area, we suggest that the area previously experienced more favourable conditions for CWC mound initiation and development along the shelf-edge margin, possibly due to differing conditions in the European Slope Current which flows northward along the continental slope from south of the Porcupine Bank to the Faroe-Shetland Channel. Graphical Abstract: (Figure presented.)
Localised precarity in social media entertainment: YouTubing in Turkey
No full textThis article examines precarious working conditions for YouTube content creation in Turkey. Creator studies have extensively examined creator precarity within the context of platform architectures and the broader social media entertainment industries. Instead of applying this lens to YouTubing in Turkey to highlight shared precarity experiences of Turkish creators with other YouTube production cultures, I focus on localised precarity to examine how creator labour is made less stable by geographical context. Drawing on in-depth interviews with creators, the research findings demonstrate that there are multiple sources of precarity associated with localised YouTube revenues in an unstable national economy, restrictive internet governance at nation-state level, and culturally situated creator–audience relations
Depression Literacy and Self-Reported Help-Giving Behaviour in Adolescents in Ireland
No full textThis questionnaire-based study aimed to explore depression literacy (DL) and help-giving experiences in 12–18-year-old adolescents (N = 535, Mage = 14.9 years, 51.8% male) in Ireland. In response to a vignette depicting a character displaying symptoms of depression, 46.7% labelled these symptoms ‘depression’, with increasing age and empathy associated with increased likelihood of labelling as such. Almost all (92.1%) believed the character needed help, but the perceived helpfulness of potential responses varied. Over one-third (38.2%) indicated they knew someone who had displayed similar symptoms in the past year, with 85.2% of these reporting having helped this person. Reported help-giving responses included comforting the person, encouraging professional help-seeking, and informing an adult. The findings suggest adolescent DL can be best supported by developmentally-sensitive interventions that encourage empathy and the importance of engaging adults’ assistance
Language affects endorsement of misconceptions about bilingualism
No full textABSTRACT
Bilingualism is associated with a number of false beliefs, myths and
misconceptions, which carry implications for bilingual education and
policymaking. While the language used, often in the media, to express
such misconceptions may have become more subtle, a negative bias
remains and is arguably more difficult to detect and defend against.
The current study examined the endorsement of common
misconceptions by bilingual and monolingual participants as a function
of the phrasing used to construct the misconception statements.
Participants (N = 103; 47% bilingual) completed an online survey
comprising common misconceptions about bilingualism as well as filler
items, rating their agreement with the statements using a 7-point
Likert-type scale. The phrasing of the misconceptions was varied such
that participants read either a strongly worded or weakly worded
version of the statements. The results showed that participants gave
higher ratings of the statements in the weakly worded condition. While
overall the average endorsement of the misconceptions was low, 82%
of participants agreed with at least one misconception and 29% agreed
with half the statements or more. There was no significant difference
between monolinguals’ and bilinguals’ ratings. The findings suggest
that misconceptions about bilingualism remain prevalent and are
readily detectable when worded ambiguously